The hardest part of the Lotusphere session planning (updated)

November 4 2004

It has been a few weeks since I said anything about Lotusphere 2005 content planning.  The deadline for submitting abstracts was a couple of weeks ago.  Maybe the world is just more paticapatory this year -- we had more abstracts submitted for LS05 than any of the previous years I've worked on the content team.
Whittling them down into the 150 or so sessions you see in Orlando every year is no easy task.  Wouldn't it be great if we could just accept every session that you'd want to see?  It just can't happen that way.
My work for LS05 content is in two dimensions... one that is looking at all Notes/Domino content across the entire agenda, and the other that is looking at the entire "infrastructure" track.  The first responsibility is relatively easy, as I collaborate there with some really smart people, and it's more of an exception management process.  I fought hard to get an extra Notes client session into the application development track -- you can thank me later. ;)  On the second responsibility, looking at an entire track, that's the harder part of the process.
In the last two years, there have been 40-45 unique sessions in the infrastructure track.  For Lotusphere 2005, the team received 150 submissions.
Getting 30-35 approved was easy -- core content is obvious.  Rejecting 75 or so was pretty straightforward, usually too detailed, too narrow a focus, or in a non-core area.  That last 20-30 sessions is the toughest part...what's going to make the cut and what won't.
Here are the buckets of content in infrastructure:

  • Core Domino
  • Core Notes
  • Core Domino Web Access/Domino Access for MS-Outlook
  • Domino platform -- Team Workplace, Instant Messaging, Web Conferencing, Domino Document Manager
  • WebSphere Portal
  • Lotus Workplace architecture
  • Lotus Workplace functionality
  • Cross-product
So, we're not going to have 40 sessions on Notes/Domino -- this isn't "Notesphere".  But I'm feeling good about the content selected, and soon, you'll see for yourself.
A companion article is posted on www.ibm.com/lotus.

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Lotusphere 05  Add/View Comments [9]

Post a Comment

  1. 1  Tim Latta  | 11/4/2004 5:36:58 PM

    I, for one, appreciate your behind-the-scenes effort on this. It is nice to see that there is effort and angst that we aren't aware of. Makes it all the better in January!

  1. 2  Rob McDonagh http://www.captainoblivious.com | 11/5/2004 9:37:22 AM

    Hey Ed,

    It's great to find out how these things actually happen. I can see that it would be really tough to pick the right sessions. I'm sure the "wicked smaht" people at IBM have thought of this, and decided not to do it for some really valid reasons, but reading this entry made me wonder if it would be worthwhile to poll the registered attendees about which sessions they are most interested in.

    I know we get an "audience calculator" survey (or have in the past, at least) to figure out which rooms and how many repeats for each session. Obviously, it's not entirely accurate because every year you guys end up adding extra sessions after seeing the real response, so maybe people just aren't dependable enough on that type of question.

    In any event, it would go without saying that such a survey would be only one piece of a very complicated puzzle, but it might be useful when you were trying to decide between 3 potential sessions if you knew that the audience overwhelmingly favored 1 or 2 of them but not the third.

    Like I said, you have really good people who do this stuff all the time, and I'm just sitting in the peanut gallery over here. But I wondered if we could help you whittle down the list somehow.

  1. 3  Sagar  | 11/5/2004 9:43:59 AM

    Ed, How many sessions on

    # WebSphere Portal

    # Lotus Workplace architecture

    # Lotus Workplace functionality

    Any plan for lotus workplace 3.x/4.x/x.x in lotusphere05 or is it goining to be all lwp 2.0.x

  1. 4  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 11/5/2004 9:54:54 AM

    @2 Rob - the problem is you wouldn't get 100% response. A poll like that has sample bias...even if we sent the link to every registered attendee. It also could, not that I harbour such suspicions, lead to ballot-stuffing. Plus, there are some sessions submitted that just don't deserve the Lotusphere stage... I wouldn't even want those nominations in public.

    There's also the issue that a few of the sessions each year are selected based on "new news" -- so today, the product or title might not be interesting, but after you see the opening session, you might be psyched to attend. That is an especially tough consideration factor, and is weighing on me right now as I think about a particular session. I can't exactly "ask the audience".

    @3 Sagar -- I'd prefer not to publish numbers at this point, especially since I'm only managing one track out of seven. I think there will be sufficient and useful content in all three product families (Domino family, Portal, Workplace).. with a bent towards Notes/Domino as has been promised.

    Workplace 3.0 will certainly be discussed, but beyond? No, not much sense in doing so (any more than it would make sense to be discussing 8.0+ of Notes/Domino in any detail).

  1. 5  Monica Adams  | 11/5/2004 10:42:31 AM

    I've attended the last 8 Lotusphere Conferences. I was one of the people who indicated on the 2004 Conference Evaluation that there needed to be more Notes/Domino core content. I applaud the efforts that you and the entire team are making to see that the 2005 Conference is the right information at the right time and about the right things.

    I won't be attending the 2005 Conference. But I look forward to hearing all about it from my colleagues that will be attending.

    Keep up the good work. It's great to see change happening .. simply because we expressed a need for it.

  1. 6  Christopher Byrne http://www.controlscaddy.com/ | 11/5/2004 4:05:00 PM

    Monica,

    Isn't your organization in the midst of a migration to Exchange or am I confusing you with another company?

  1. 7  Monica Adams  | 11/5/2004 4:14:20 PM

    No, you're not confused. Most subsidiaries / divisions of our parent company are moving and/or have moved to Exchange. Thankfully, so far, we have always been able to show that Exchange will not work in our environment.

  1. 8  Christopher Byrne http://www.controlscaddy.com/ | 11/5/2004 4:22:56 PM

    If it is not disclosing any trade secrets or business information, what have your successful arguments been? how many seats are we talking? etc etc?

  1. 9  Monica Adams  | 11/5/2004 11:01:39 PM

    I think I can explain this without giving away any confidential information .....

    We have a distributed environment (about 1500 branch offices across the US) that are connected to headquarters via a low-bandwidth satellite. As it happens for other reasons, each branch has an iSeries server in it. So, a Domino server was installed in each branch on the existing iSeries server. Local users get their mail and most of their Intranet content off of the local server and traffic across the network is restricted to mail routing and replication (compressed using the TurboGold tool from Stampede).

    So, to put Exchange in we would have to either .. put Windows servers in 1500 locations with no onsite IT support OR upgrade the satellite network in order to host e-mail centrally at the headquarters location. Both are multi-million dollar propositions and do not offer anything above what we have today. So, to date, at least, we've been fortunate and have not had to convert.

    I do think it's interesting to note .. that even while some of the other subsidiaries/divisions have been forced to convert from Notes e-mail ... the Notes/Domino platform remains an application platform across the company. It's presence is in fact growing.

    I hope that I've hit the high points to your questions. Let me know if there's anything else you're curious about.